Filthy Rich Cleaners Podcast E2: Building a Luxury Home Assistant Business with Simone Angell

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From your first dollar to your first million, welcome to the Filthy Rich Cleaners podcast, presented by ZenMaid. Join your host Stephanie Pipkin, founder of Serene Clean, as she shares proven tips, tricks, and hard-earned lessons. Whether you’re just starting out or ready to scale, get ready to discover how to build your own cleaning empire. Let’s roll up our sleeves and dive in.

Meet Simone Angell

Hello everyone, and welcome back to the Filthy Rich Cleaners podcast. I am super excited about our guest today, Simone, all the way from Australia. She has a fascinating journey, a fascinating business, and I have a million questions. But first, Simone, thank you for your time. How about you start out? Tell us about your history. You have a really interesting backstory and very motivational, may I say so.

Starting House Mum Home Services

Simone: Thank you. I’ve been looking forward to today. My business House Mum is almost five years old. I started it in January of 2020 as a single mom of five at the time. I wanted to create a service that could do so much more than just cleaning, because I understood as a busy mom that there’s so much more to running a household than just bathrooms, kitchen floors, and dusting. What about folding laundry, doing dishes, and just supporting busy families with those extra tasks? That’s what I did – I grew very quickly and here we are, almost five years later, with a beautiful team and continuing to grow.

Stephanie: That’s amazing. We actually have fairly similar timelines since I started in April of 2019. I’m curious about what time of year you started in 2020, because COVID was going full blast then. Tell me about that because I know what that was like for me as a new business owner. Was that terrifying?

Turning COVID Challenges into Opportunities

Simone: I started in January of that year, and by March, things were really ramping up and becoming quite real here in Australia. I had those thoughts like, “What have I done? What a time to start a business!” But actually, it worked well in my favor because borders were closed. There were no students getting into the country, which a lot of people usually rely on for cleaning services. So people were reaching out to me because they needed someone to help. Then I was also getting people coming to work for me because they were losing jobs in other industries – from beauty, hospitality, and things like that.

Stephanie: Yeah, that’s similar to us, especially because we offer commercial services. A lot of the businesses that were deemed essential needed extra cleaning. And then everybody was working from home and losing their minds because their kids were also at home going through school. We were in the right industry to go through COVID, for sure.

Standing Out in a Crowded Market

Stephanie: It’s interesting to hear how you basically lost competition. I’d never thought of that aspect of it with the closed borders. Even though I’m sure a lot of people were trying to do the same thing – opening cleaning businesses since it’s such a low barrier to entry. Sometimes there’s a lot of low-quality competition, I find.

Simone: Well, even when I started the business, I was worried about that because I thought, “Man, there’s just every person starting their own version of some kind of cleaning service.” I thought, “Why am I different?” But then I quickly realized – which we’ll probably get into more – it’s the difference between someone who says they can do something and someone that actually does what they say they’re going to do.

Building on Core Values

Stephanie: Oh, absolutely. Just that integrity in doing what you’re saying you’re going to do and really doing right by everybody to the best of your ability in every situation. Using that as your North Star of, “Should I be doing this thing?” or “Is this the right path for the business?” Obviously, we all make mistakes, but if you try to come at it from “Am I doing the right thing?” usually you can’t get led too far astray.

Creating a Workplace That Supports Mothers

Stephanie: That brings me to such a core aspect of your business – catering to mothers for a workplace and having that flexibility. I so relate to that because that’s the majority of my staff. We’re 90% women, we’ve always been that, if not more. And the majority being mothers. That was honestly the only benefit I could offer in the beginning was extreme flexibility because I couldn’t offer high pay, PTO, or health insurance. But what I could offer is you do not need to work a typical schedule. You don’t need to give me 40 hours – it’s just what is sustainable and what’s going to work for you as a mother.

Simone: Having been in a workplace before and not having that flexibility, I understood what it meant to have flexibility in the workplace. It blows their minds when I have an interview with people and my questions are, “When are you available?” and “What would your ideal schedule look like?” They’re used to being told when they have to go to work and what days they have to be there. I schedule differently because I actually schedule clients around their availability.

The Value of Part-Time Staff

Simone: That gives you longevity and access to a workforce that you would never tap into otherwise. People think that because they’re not available the expected 40 hours, they won’t be a high-quality employee. I look at some of my best staff members – I can think of one off the top of my head. She’s been with me for over three, almost four years, and she has worked for me for 20 hours a week. She has her son, went through a divorce, both parents going through extreme health situations, and caring for her father through hospice. Her name’s Ashley, and she stands out so strongly. She is who I created this workforce for – if I could clone her, I’d be a bajillionaire because she’s so good.

Stephanie: And you would never have had her if you had been a stickler about hours. I would much rather have ten part-timers than five full-timers.

Simone: Absolutely. I agree with you completely. They really value what they have because they know that what we’ve created is not something they can just get anywhere else.

Leading by Example as a Working Mom

Simone: I have to tell you this story. When I started the business, my youngest was still not in school yet. He was only in kindy, which is like a two-day-a-week situation. When I would go and meet new clients, he would come with me on the days he wasn’t in kindy. Some people would think, “Oh, I can’t do it. I’ve got my little one with me.” But I’m like, “No.” Because I’m showing people that we’re a family-friendly business and this is who you’re getting when you’re booking with House Mum. I’d show up at the door and a lot of people would say, “Oh, make sure you bring Harry along if you need to.”

Stephanie: Well, you were basically filtering before you even took on the client. If they weren’t okay with that, they’re probably not going to be a good fit for you.

Managing Growth and Client Expectations

Stephanie: That was one of my initial questions – if you had children who were not of school age, what were you doing with them during that first year? Because whenever I talk to new owners who are also parents, that is the struggle, especially if they’re a single parent. How do I provide the consistency and show up? Because that is one of the biggest selling points.

Simone: He would come with me on the days that he wasn’t in kindy. I was lucky that I had clients that were fine with it. But I also didn’t take very long to start hiring people because I knew that the end goal is to be managing a business – I can’t do that when I’m working with clients. So that was only the first 12 months, and now obviously he’s off at school. I also don’t work with clients anymore because I just don’t have time to be managing a business.

The key is also not to take on too much because some people just think they have to jam in and say yes to everybody. That’s when you start to fall apart. I’m a bit of a people pleaser and I had to learn very quickly that trying to say yes and people-please everybody meant that’s where things come undone.

The Temptation to Do Everything

Stephanie: Yeah, and I think it’s such a struggle because we’re trying to make money, trying to make a living and support ourselves and our families. It’s so tempting to say yes to everything. I mean, I’m actually not allowed to pick up the phone or anything. My managers will cry the phone out of my hands because we’ll end up cleaning gutters! We literally were painting interiors of move-outs one time because Stephanie picked up the phone.

Simone: It’s about thinking long term and realizing that everybody you turn away is leaving space for your ideal client. Get comfortable with saying no and be really clear with those boundaries. I created an avatar of who my ideal client is, and that makes it so much easier. When people come through messaging or contacting us, do they fit this criteria? If they’re not, then here’s a list of people we recommend who might be able to help you.

Creating Systems for Quality Service

Stephanie: Obviously, if you have different service types – we do residential and commercial vacation rentals – having one for each of those categories and sticking to it and saying, “Okay, does this match long term?” It’s a strategy. You’re just being more strategic and more controlled as opposed to just kind of chaotic.

Simone: We mainly work with ongoing clients, so weekly are our main clients. I’m trying to build that long-lasting relationship. If I’m saying yes to the wrong client, then they’re either not going to stay long-term, or my team’s not going to be happy there, or they’re going to give me trouble. So then I’ll just hate every time we have to go there. It’s just better off to just move them along.

Training for Specialized Services

Stephanie: I’m super-duper intrigued by the training aspect. How do you scale these services that are so bespoke and niche? How do you do it? I’ve even struggled with a lot of clients asking for organizing services – like how do you train somebody to organize? You just know where you’re going, it feels like.

Building a Specialized Team

Simone: That’s exactly right, and to be honest, with those sorts of things, I don’t train in organizing because I don’t organize myself. I hire people who already have those skills. When I put out job ads, I ask them what their specialties are. Then when I’m pairing a home assistant to a client, I can make a good match based on their skills. If someone wants ironing, but this person doesn’t iron, I can say, “Well, they tick all these boxes, but they don’t iron. Would you like to book that home assistant or would you like to continue waiting for someone who will tick all the boxes?”

Stephanie: So would you say having a waitlist is something that very often happens as they’re waiting for a particular person?

Simone: I have a waiting list, but it’s not necessarily just because they’re waiting for a particular person. It could be because it’s an area we don’t service yet or we just don’t have staff available in that area at the moment. I don’t like to rush hiring just because we have a waiting list. I’m always told a waiting list is a good problem to have, and then that also gives you that confidence if people move on.

The Power of Exclusivity

Stephanie: I think that’s something that especially newer owners or less experienced owners are really scared of – having a wait list. They see it as a negative or that those people are not going to wait. The exclusivity feeling that gives of you being in high demand… and they don’t need to know why you have a wait list. You always frame it as, “Yeah, we’re just so popular and people want us” as opposed to “I’m struggling so badly with hiring right now.”

Client Communication and Quality Control

Simone: That’s fine, we’ll just keep that to ourselves. I mention on their onboarding call that communication is key. We’ll communicate with you, we expect the same in return because we’re not mind readers. If you’ve got someone and they’re doing something because that’s how they’ve been trained, but you like it a specific way, actually tell us. We go autopilot that first time to just give you a House Mum experience, and then from there we can tweak it, but we can’t tweak it unless you tell us.

My team actually sends follow-up texts after each service that comes directly from them so that clients know they’ve got that home assistant contact if they’ve got a question. They used to come through me or my admin team, and then we’d have to relay the information back and forth. But we just send those check-ins after each service, update them on anything they might need to know, and we find that really helps with retention because they feel heard and seen.

Looking to the Future

Stephanie: Looking towards 2025, obviously we’re coming up on the new year. Do you have any specific goals or visions that you’re trying to obtain?

Simone: My plan is to be Australia-wide by the end of next year. I’ve just started a Gold Coast team – I’ve got three people down there now. So I’m now learning to train remotely, which is kind of cool. I’m hiring people that I may not ever meet or meet for a long time. And then I’ve just got a client on my waiting list down in Melbourne now, so a whole different state, which is really cool.

Final Thoughts

Stephanie: Well, Simone, I hope we can talk again because this has been really insightful and I appreciate your time.

Simone: Yeah, we’ll definitely be talking again. Thank you.

Stephanie: Thank you to everybody for listening to this episode of Filthy Rich Cleaners Podcast. And we’ll see you next time.

Note: This transcript has been edited for clarity and readability.

Resources Mentioned in This Episode:

• House Mum Home Services: https://www.housemum.com/
• Google Docs for business management
• ZenMaid Software: https://get.zenmaid.com/

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